THE ICE-PAN ADVENTURE
On Easter Sunday, the 21st of April, 1908, it was still winter with us
in northern Newfoundland. Everything was covered with snow and ice. I
was returning to the hospital after morning service, when a boy came
running over with the news that a large team of dogs had come from
sixty miles to the southward to get a doctor to come at once on an
urgent case. A fortnight before we had operated on a young man for
acute bone disease of the thigh, but when he was sent home the people
had allowed the wound to close, and poisoned matter had accumulated.
As it seemed probable that we should have to remove the leg, there was
no time to be lost, and I therefore started immediately, the
messengers following me with their team.
My dogs were especially good ones and had pulled me out of many a
previous scrape by their sagacity and endurance. Moody, Watch, Spy,
Doc, Brin, Jerry, Sue, and Jack were as beautiful beasts as ever
hauled a komatik over our Northern barrens. The messengers had been
anxious that their team should travel back with mine, for their
animals were slow at best, and moreover were now tired from their long
journey. My dogs, however, were so powerful that it was impossible to
hold them back, and though I twice managed to wait for the following
sledge, I had reached a village twenty miles to the south and had
already fed my team when the others caught up.
That night the wind came in from sea, bringing with it both fog and
rain, softening the snow and making the travelling very difficult.
Besides this a heavy sea began heaving into the bay on the shores
of which lay the little hamlet where I spent my first night. Our
journey the next day would be over forty miles, the first ten lying on
an arm of the sea.
[Illustration: A SPRING SCENE AT ST. ANTHONY]
[Illustration: DOG RACE AT ST. ANTHONY]
In order not to be separated too long from my friends I sent them
ahead of me by two hours, appointing as a rendezvous the log tilt on
the other side of the bay. As I started the first rain of the year
began to fall, and I was obliged to keep on what we call the
"ballicaters," or ice barricades, for a much longer distance up the
bay than I had anticipated. The sea, rolling in during the previous
night, had smashed the ponderous layer of surface ice right up to the
landwash. Between the huge ice-pans were gaping chasms, while half a
mile out all was clear water.
Three miles from the shore is a small island situated in the middle of
the bay. This had preserved an ice bridge, so that by crossing a few
cracks I managed to get to it safely. From that point it was only four
miles to the opposite shore, a saving of several miles if one could
make it, instead of following the landwash round the bay. Although the
ice looked rough, it seemed good, though one could see that it had
been smashed up by the incoming sea and packed in tight again by the
easterly wind. Therefore, without giving the matter a second thought,
I flung myself on the komatik and the dogs started for the rocky
promontory some four miles distant.
All went well till we were within about a quarter of a mile of our
objective point. Then the wind dropped suddenly, and I noticed
simultaneously that we were travelling over "sish" ice. By stabbing
down with my whip-handle I could drive it through the thin coating of
young ice which had formed on the surface. "Sish" ice is made up of
tiny bits formed by the pounding together of the large pans by the
heavy seas. So quickly had the wind veered and come offshore, and so
rapidly did the packed slob, relieved of the inward pressure of the
easterly breeze, "run abroad," that already I could not see any pan
larger than ten feet square. The whole field of ice was loosening so
rapidly that no retreat was possible.
There was not a moment to lose. I dragged off my oilskins and threw
myself on my hands and knees beside the komatik so as to give a larger
base to hold, shouting at the same time to my team to make a dash for
the shore. We had not gone twenty yards when the dogs scented danger
and hesitated, and the komatik sank instantly into the soft slob. Thus
the dogs had to pull much harder, causing them to sink also.
It flashed across my mind that earlier in the year a man had been
drowned in this same way by his team tangling their traces around him
in the slob. I loosened my sheath-knife, scrambled forward and cut the
traces, retaining the leader's trace wound securely round my wrist.
As I was in the water I could not discern anything that would bear us
up, but I noticed that my leading dog was wallowing about near a piece
of snow, packed and frozen together like a huge snowball, some
twenty-five yards away. Upon this he had managed to scramble. He shook
the ice and water from his shaggy coat and turned around to look for
me. Perched up there out of the frigid water he seemed to think the
situation the most natural in the world, and the weird black marking
of his face made him appear to be grinning with satisfaction. The rest
of us were bogged like flies in treacle.
Gradually I succeeded in hauling myself along by the line which was
still attached to my wrist, and was nearly up to the snow-raft, when
the leader turned adroitly round, slipped out of his harness, and once
more leered at me with his grinning face.
There seemed nothing to be done, and I was beginning to feel drowsy
with the cold, when I noticed the trace of another dog near by. He had
fallen through close to the pan, and was now unable to force his way
out. Along his line I hauled myself, using him as a kind of bow
anchor--and I soon lay, with my dogs around me, on the little island
of slob ice.
The piece of frozen snow on which we lay was so small that it was
evident we must all be drowned if we were forced to remain on it as it
was driven seaward into open water. Twenty yards away was a larger and
firmer pan floating in the sish, and if we could reach it I felt that
we might postpone for a time the death which seemed inescapable. To my
great satisfaction I now found that my hunting knife was still tied on
to the back of one of the dogs, where I had attached it when we first
fell through. Soon the sealskin traces hanging on the dogs' harnesses
were cut and spliced together to form one long line. I divided this
and fastened the ends to the backs of my two leaders, attaching the
two other ends to my own wrists. My long sealskin boots, reaching to
my hips, were full of ice and water, and I took them off and tied them
separately on the dogs' backs. I had already lost my coat, cap,
gloves, and overalls.
Nothing seemed to be able to induce the dogs to move, even though I
kept throwing them off the ice into the water. Perhaps it was only
natural that they should struggle back, for once in the water they
could see no other pan to which to swim. It flashed into my mind that
my small black spaniel which was with me was as light as a feather and
could get across with no difficulty. I showed him the direction and
then flung a bit of ice toward the desired goal. Without a second's
hesitation he made a dash and reached the pan safely, as the tough
layer of sea ice easily carried his weight. As he lay on the white
surface looking like a round black fuss ball, my leaders could plainly
see him. They now understood what I wanted and fought their way
bravely toward the little retriever, carrying with them the line that
gave me yet another chance for my life. The other dogs followed them,
and all but one succeeded in getting out on the new haven of refuge.
Taking all the run that the length of my little pan would afford, I
made a dive, slithering along the surface as far as possible before I
once again fell through. This time I had taken the precaution to tie
the harnesses under the dogs' bellies so that they could not slip them
off, and after a long fight I was able to drag myself onto the new
pan.
Though we had been working all the while toward the shore, the
offshore wind had driven us a hundred yards farther seaward. On closer
examination I found that the pan on which we were resting was not ice
at all, but snow-covered slob, frozen into a mass which would
certainly eventually break up in the heavy sea, which was momentarily
increasing as the ice drove offshore before the wind. The westerly
wind kept on rising--a bitter blast with us in winter, coming as it
does over the Gulf ice.
Some yards away I could still see my komatik with my thermos bottle
and warm clothing on it, as well as matches and wood. In the memory of
the oldest inhabitant no one had ever been adrift on the ice in this
bay, and unless the team which had gone ahead should happen to come
back to look for me, there was not one chance in a thousand of my
being seen.
To protect myself from freezing I now cut down my long boots as far as
the feet, and made a kind of jacket, which shielded my back from the
rising wind.
By midday I had passed the island to which I had crossed on the ice
bridge. The bridge was gone, so that if I did succeed in reaching
that island I should only be marooned there and die of starvation.
Five miles away to the north side of the bay the immense pans of
Arctic ice were surging to and fro in the ground seas and thundering
against the cliffs. No boat could have lived through such surf, even
if I had been seen from that quarter. Though it was hardly, safe to
move about on my little pan, I saw that I must have the skins of some
of my dogs, if I were to live the night out without freezing. With
some difficulty I now succeeded in killing three of my dogs--and I
envied those dead beasts whose troubles were over so quickly. I
questioned if, once I passed into the open sea, it would not be better
to use my trusty knife on myself than to die by inches.
But the necessity for work saved me from undue philosophizing; and
night found me ten miles on my seaward voyage, with the three dogs
skinned and their fur wrapped around me as a coat. I also frayed a
small piece of rope into oakum and mixed it with the fat from the
intestines of my dogs. But, alas, I found that the matches in my box,
which was always chained to me, were soaked to a pulp and quite
useless. Had I been able to make a fire out there at sea, it would
have looked so uncanny that I felt sure that the fishermen friends,
whose tiny light I could just discern twinkling away in the bay, would
see it. The carcasses of my dogs I piled up to make a windbreak, and
at intervals I took off my clothes, wrung them out, swung them in the
wind, and put on first one and then the other inside, hoping that the
heat of my body would thus dry them. My feet gave me the most trouble,
as the moccasins were so easily soaked through in the snow. But I
remembered the way in which the Lapps who tended our reindeer carried
grass with them, to use in their boots in place of dry socks. As soon
as I could sit down I began to unravel the ropes from the dogs'
harnesses, and although by this time my fingers were more or less
frozen, I managed to stuff the oakum into my shoes.
Shortly before I had opened a box containing some old football clothes
which I had not seen for twenty years. I was wearing this costume at
the time; and though my cap, coat, and gloves were gone, as I stood
there in a pair of my old Oxford University running shorts, and red,
yellow, and black Richmond football stockings, and a flannel shirt, I
remembered involuntarily the little dying girl who asked to be dressed
in her Sunday frock so that she might arrive in heaven properly
attired.
Forcing my biggest dog to lie down, I cuddled up close to him, drew
the improvised dogskin rug over me, and proceeded to go to sleep. One
hand being against the dog was warm, but the other was frozen, and
about midnight I woke up shivering enough, so I thought, to shatter my
frail pan to atoms. The moon was just rising, and the wind was
steadily driving me toward the open sea. Suddenly what seemed a
miracle happened, for the wind veered, then dropped away entirely
leaving it flat calm. I turned over and fell asleep again. I was next
awakened by the sudden and persistent thought that I must have a flag,
and accordingly set to work to disarticulate the frozen legs of my
dead dogs. Cold as it was I determined to sacrifice my shirt to top
this rude flagpole as soon as the daylight came. When the legs were at
last tied together with bits of old harness rope, they made the
crookedest flagstaff that it has ever been my lot to see. Though with
the rising of the sun the frost came out of the dogs' legs to some
extent, and the friction of waving it made the odd pole almost tie
itself in knots, I could raise it three or four feet above my head,
which was very important.
Once or twice I thought that I could distinguish men against the
distant cliffs--for I had drifted out of the bay into the sea--but the
objects turned out to be trees. Once also I thought that I saw a boat
appearing and disappearing on the surface of the water, but it proved
to be only a small piece of ice bobbing up and down. The rocking of my
cradle on the waves had helped me to sleep, and I felt as well as I
ever did in my life. I was confident that I could last another
twenty-four hours if my boat would only hold out and not rot under the
sun's rays. I could not help laughing at my position, standing hour
after hour waving my shirt at those barren and lonely cliffs; but I
can honestly say that from first to last not a single sensation of
fear crossed my mind.
My own faith in the mystery of immortality is so untroubled that it
now seemed almost natural to be passing to the portal of death from an
ice-pan. Quite unbidden, the words of the old hymn kept running
through my head:
"My God, my Father, while I stray
Far from my home on life's rough way,
Oh, help me from my heart to say,
Thy will be done."
I had laid my wooden matches out to dry and was searching about on the
pan for a piece of transparent ice which I could use as a
burning-glass. I thought that I could make smoke enough to be seen
from the land if only I could get some sort of a light. All at once I
seemed to see the glitter of an oar, but I gave up the idea because I
remembered that it was not water which lay between me and the land,
but slob ice, and even if people had seen me, I did not imagine that
they could force a boat through. The next time that I went back to my
flag-waving, however, the glitter was very distinct, but my
snow-glasses having been lost, I was partially snow-blind and
distrusted my vision. But at last, besides the glide of an oar I made
out the black streak of a boat's hull, and knew that if the pan held
out for another hour I should be all right. The boat drew nearer and
nearer, and I could make out my rescuers frantically waving. When they
got close by they shouted, "Don't get excited. Keep on the pan where
you are." They were far more excited than I, and had they only known
as I did the sensations of a bath in the icy water, without the chance
of drying one's self afterwards, they would not have expected me to
wish to follow the example of the Apostle Peter.
As the first man leaped on my pan and grasped my hand, not a word was
spoken, but I could see the emotions which he was trying to force
back. A swallow of the hot tea which had been thoughtfully sent out in
a bottle, the dogs hoisted on board, and we started for home, now
forging along in open water, now pushing the pans apart with the oars,
and now jumping out on the ice and hauling the boat over the pans.
It seems that the night before four men had been out on the headland
cutting up some seals which they had killed in the fall. As they were
leaving for home, my ice-raft must have drifted clear of Hare Island,
and one of them, with his keen fisherman's eyes, had detected
something unusual on the ice. They at once returned to their village,
saying that something living was adrift on the floe. The one man on
that section of coast who owned a good spy-glass jumped up from his
supper on hearing the news and hurried over to the lookout on the
cliffs. Dusk though it was, he saw that a man was out on the ice, and
noticed him every now and again waving his hands at the shore. He
immediately surmised who it must be; so little as I thought it, when
night was closing in the men at the village were trying to launch a
boat. Miles of ice lay between them and me, and the angry sea was
hurling great blocks against the land. While I had considered myself a
laughing-stock, bowing with my flag at those unresponsive cliffs, many
eyes were watching me.
By daybreak a fine volunteer crew had been organized, and the boat,
with such a force behind it, would, I believe, have gone through
anything. After seeing the heavy breakers through which we were
guided, as at last we ran in at the harbour mouth, I knew well what
the wives of that crew had been thinking when they saw their loved
ones depart on such an errand.
Every soul in the village was waiting to shake hands as I landed; and
even with the grip that one after another gave me, I did not find out
that my hands were badly frostburnt--a fact which I have realized
since, however. I must have looked a weird object as I stepped ashore,
tied up in rags, stuffed out with oakum, and wrapped in the bloody
dogskins.
The news had gone over to the hospital that I was lost, so I at once
started north for St. Anthony, though I must confess that I did not
greatly enjoy the trip, as I had to be hauled like a log, my feet
being so frozen that I could not walk. For a few days subsequently I
had painful reminders of the adventure in my frozen hands and feet,
which forced me to keep to my bed--an unwelcome and unusual interlude
in my way of life.
In our hallway stands a bronze tablet:
"To the Memory of
Three Noble Dogs
Moody
Watch
Spy
Whose lives were given
For mine on the ice
April 21st, 1908."
The boy whose life I was intent on saving was brought to the hospital
a day or so later in a boat, the ice having cleared off the coast
temporarily; and he was soon on the highroad to recovery.
We all love life, and I was glad to have a new lease of it before me.
As I went to sleep that night there still rang through my ears the
same verse of the old hymn which had been my companion on the ice-pan:
"Oh, help me from my heart to say,
Thy will be done."